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Billie Holiday

by Leroux from Villeurbanne

"No two people on earth are alike, and it's got to be that way in music or it isn't music." Billie Holiday
Billie Holiday (http://usuarios.lycos.es/vioneto/photo.htm)
Billie Holiday William P. Gottlieb [Public domain], via Wikimedia Commons

My role model is Billie Holiday, a black American woman who lived during the twenties. In my opinion a role model is someone who changes people’s lives with progressive ideas, who brings peace and makes everyday life better for everyone, even if it involves risks for himself. A role model will go to any lengths to change our society. As far as I’m concerned, Billie Holiday displayed these characteristics by fighting against racism in 1938 through a moving poem she used to sing in an integrated club called Café Society. With this song she spelt out the disenfranchisement of black people. At this time, being harassed by the “WASP”s was their daily plight: for example the Ku Klux Klan lynched them for the sake of lynching.

Through the poem “Strange Fruit” she fought against these inequalities and denounced them. In an interview, she said she wrote the poem under the influence of drugs, but in reality, the ghostwriter is Lewis Allen, a young communist teacher who was also an activist. He saw pictures of black people killed in the Bible Belt and it made him feel blue, so he decided to make things change and wrote “Strange Fruit,” which put across a description of violence against Black people. Billie Holiday read this poem and considering that it was moving for her, and it reminded her of her father's death, she decided to put it to music with the help of her accompanist. (Her father died when she was a little girl because he was sick, and at this time the hospital denied treatment to Black people). When she sang "Strange Fruit" for the first time at Café Society, at first there was no reaction from the audience, then one person started to clap and then the whole crowd followed him. It was a big success, but whenever she sang the song, the audience would make scenes because the subject of the poem was relevant at this time. Her song became a hit and she sold plenty of albums. Also known as “Lady Day,” Billie Holiday was born in 1915. After a very hard childhood (her father's death, her mother left her to her grandparents…), when she was 15, she was jailed for prostitution. By the time her career was taking off, in 1940, she had started using hard drugs. After being jailed again on drug charges, she started to drink a lot of alcohol. Although she was a drug addict and alcoholic, most of her contributions to society were positive and progressive ones.

I feel that she was a positive role model in society because through her unique melody style, she passed on a peaceful message, and she was one of the first women in Jazz. Not only was she a marvelous singer, but she was also engaged in her project for equality between Black and White people. A few years later, Martin Luther King made the Civil Rights Movement grow, and Black people were given a law that enabled them to vote without discrimination against them. If we could follow her example in life, we could live in a peaceful and serene world without war and violence, where everybody would be equal.

Page created on 5/12/2006 12:00:00 AM

Last edited 4/7/2020 2:09:31 AM

The beliefs, viewpoints and opinions expressed in this hero submission on the website are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the beliefs, viewpoints and opinions of The MY HERO Project and its staff.

Related Links

The Official BILLIE HOLIDAY Website - Everything about Billie Holiday
Biography.com - Billie Holiday's biography